Palm Oil, Super Sizing, and Kanye West, Oh My!!

Okay, this won't look like much to anyone else, but remember that I am learning to use Aeroponic Garden Towers for urban gardening. When I ordered the seedlings, I didn't pay any attention to how they were marked, so to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what I was growing. I was waiting until it burst open with vegetables, and then I'd know. Yesterday a new friend, who is a nutritionist, came over and pointed out that two of the mystery plants were kale. Kale!!! And ready to harvest! I also had an impressive bunch of chives, too, but they aren't pictured.

So....yay! One small step in the right direction! My baby seedlings are about a week away from planting into the second garden tower- I am hoping to get the swing of it in the next few months so I can help teach others how to do it. I think it will be amazing to help people who live in apartment buildings learn to grow their own vegetables, in spite of the lack of soil. So cool!

Could Kanye West grow Kale like this?

Here is the second picture my sweet friend Becca took- she told me to look as excited as I was- personally I think I look a little psychotic, but make no mistake, that is sheer enthusiasm. And then...I made a big fat kale/strawberry/almond/banana/coconut milk smoothie with it.

Yay organic home grown kale!

My nutritionist friend dropped some science on me about, errrrrr, well nutrition of course, and she always leaves me feeling like the world of food is a great and amazing mystery- not unlike my recently harvested kale. She is like a food Yoda. She says things like- "smokers need to eat more vitamin C than non smokers, so when given a choice between strawberries or bananas, they should always pick bananas." Or, 'adding lemon juice to dark leafy green liberates the nutrients', or "an actual serving of a bagel is 1/4 of a bagel. Not the whole bagel. 1/4. Same with red meat. A serving is 3 oz. Americans eat 12 or more ounce steaks. And we wonder why obesity is what it is." When she explained to me how insulin in the blood works, and how it responds to stuff like pasta, that its this whole tricky thing that goes on inside creating spikes in insulin, more than the body can use, so the insulin is just hanging out in the blood, telling you that you are hungry, even if you are completely full, you will often still feel hungry." Such cool information! I plan on picking her brain and sharing what I find in there with YOU.

Yoda is cute, but my Food Yoda is waaaaay cuter

I really liked this bit of info. It points to the different sides of the fence we all make in regards to food. Its such a personal matter, which is why changing your way of eating is, in my opinion, such a revolutionary act. Some do it for weight, some do it for health, some do it not to hurt animals, some do it to stop supporting the food corporations, hence a socio/political stance. Some unexamined eaters will eat for comfort, out of boredom, for the high, because of a disordered relationship to food, they supersize it because they can, they eat it because its there.  For those who eat healthy out of concerns for weight, I just want to say- the last two times I was at the Farmer's Market, I did not see one single obese person there. Not one. Everyone was, dare I say it, easy on the eyes. They looked fit and healthy and content in their skin.

Here is an angle we don't hear about much, in the face of Monsanto and GMOs. Palm oil production. Have you heard of this?  I hadn't. Apparently palm oil is now in pretty much everything. And this palm oil is harvested in places like Indonesia, where the climate is perfect for it. In order to grow it, they are destroying rain forests at an alarming rate, threatening many species of animals- not the least of which is the orangutan of Sumatra's rain forests.

Read more about palm oil, deforestation and the plight of orangutans HERE

Learn more about what food to avoid that contains palm oil HERE.

Suffice it to say, its many of the same foods you might already be avoiding if you are trying not to eat GMOs. If you aren't there yet, here is another good reason to start being very conscious about your eating habits- these little babies below are one of the species that is being endangered so the food corporations can give the world snacks. SNACKS.

This whole radical shift in the way I am living my life when it comes to my eating habits continues to surprise me. Its so much more than it seems, on the surface. "Its just food, what's the big deal," I used to think, and many still do. But our food is everything. Its the one thing we ALL have to do, eat. Its the one thing that will determine the state of our health. Those who control it have us by the short and curlies and we as a culture are not even aware. Did you know that it benefits insurance companies to keep Americans fat? They can charge you higher rates if your BMI is over a certain percent. Do you think they might be very happy, in fact very encouraging, of the whole Super Sizing food portions?  This isn't conspiracy theorizing. This is an actual conspiracy, and the joke is on us all.

This very reason is why this is a radical thing to do. This is why its revolutionary. If we don't buy or eat their food, then we are, individually, free from their toxic influence. If enough people do it, we start to shift the mantle of power. They need our money to succeed in a capitalist society. Its our money- lets not use it to support those who want to make us fat and dumb, to feed us poison and destroy the earth and its critters. Every cent you spend on processed foods, non locally grown produce, fast food, etc- is money you are giving the McDeath Corporations to poison your children and kill your world. Have you ever seen the movie Wall-E? I'm just sayin'.

Okay, so perhaps I am waxing a little dramatic, but its not far from the truth. Give it some thought. I am here to tell you that if I can do this, you can too. I am here to tell you it IS affordable, it IS fun, there are so many amazing new things to try that you don't even know of yet (check out my Radical Recipes on this blog! New recipes every week.) Its sexy. It changes the way you look at everything. It feels liberating. You feel...awake.  It feels good! In ways you can't possibly understand until you cross over.  And if you aren't ready yet- I ain't mad at ya. You can do your part in other ways. Like share the crap out of this blog!!!!

I will leave my ranting and raving for the day with my favorite song of the week... Kanye West, Black Skinhead. He has redeemed himself, if you ask me.

Xoxo,

Ashley Dane